Full outer join on multiple tables in PostgreSQL - postgresql

In PostgreSQL, I have N tables, each consisting of two columns: id and value. Within each table, id is a unique identifier and value is numeric.
I would like to join all the tables using id and, for each id, create a sum of values of all the tables where the id is present (meaning the id may be present only in subset of tables).
I was trying the following query:
SELECT COALESCE(a.id, b.id, c.id) AS id,
COALESCE(a.value,0) + COALESCE(b.value,0) + COALESCE(c.value.0) AS value
FROM
a
FULL OUTER JOIN
b
ON (a.id=b.id)
FULL OUTER JOIN
c
ON (b.id=c.id)
But it doesn't work for cases when the id is present in a and c, but not in b.
I suppose I would have to do some bracketing like:
SELECT COALESCE(x.id, c.id) AS id, x.value+c.value AS value
FROM
(SELECT COALESCE(a.id, b.id), a.value+b.value AS value
FROM
a
FULL OUTER JOIN
b
ON (a.id=b.id)
) AS x
FULL OUTER JOIN
c
ON (x.id = c.id)
It was only 3 tables and the code is ugly enough already imho. Is there some elegant, systematic ways how to do the join for N tables? Not to get lost in my code?
I would also like to point out that I did some simplifications in my example. Tables a, b, c, ..., are actually results of quite complex queries over several materialized views. But the syntactical problem remains the same.

I understood you need to sum the values from N tables and group them by id, correct?
For that I would do this:
Select x.id, sum (x.value) from (
Select * from a
Union all
Select * from b
Union all........
) as x group by x.id;
Since the n tables are composed by the same fields you can union them all creating a big table full of all the id - value tuples from all tables. Use union all because union filters for duplicates!
Then just sum all the values grouped by id.

Related

Join two tables on all columns to determine if they contain identical information

I want to check if tables table_a and table_b are identical. I thought I could full outer join both tables on all columns and count the number of rows and missing values. However, both tables have many columns and I do not want to explicitly type out every column name.
Both tables have the same number of columns as well as names. How can I full outer join both of them on all columns without explicitly typing every column name?
I would like to do something along this syntax:
select
count(1)
,sum(case when x.id is null then 1 else 0 end) as x_nulls
,sum(case when y.id is null then 1 else 0 end) as y_nulls
from
x
full outer join
y
on
*
;
You can use NATURAL FULL OUTER JOIN here. The NATURAL key word will join on all columns that have the same name.
Just testing if the tables are identical could then be:
SELECT *
FROM x NATURAL FULL OUTER JOIN y
WHERE x.id IS NULL OR y.id IS NULL
This will show "orphaned" rows in either table.
You might use except operators.
For example the following would return an empty set if both tables contain the same rows:
select * from t1
except
select * from t2;
If you want to find rows in t1 that are different to those in t2 you could do
select * from t1
where not exists (select * from t1 except select * from t2);
Provided the number and types of columns match you can use select *, the tables' columns can vary in names; you could also invert the above and union to return combined differences.

dynamically choose fields from different table based on existense

I have two tables A and B.
Both the tables have same number of columns.
Table A always contains all ids of Table B.
Need to fetch row from Table B first if it does not exist then have
to fetch from Table A.
I was trying to dynamically do this
select
CASE
WHEN b.id is null THEN
a.*
ELSE
b.*
END
from A a
left join B b on b.id = a.id
I think this syntax is not correct.
Can some one suggest how to proceed.
It looks like you want to select all columns from table A except when a matching ID exists in table B. In that case you want to select all columns from table B.
That can be done with this query as long as the number and types of columns in both tables are compatible:
select * from a where not exists (select 1 from b where b.id = a.id)
union all
select * from b
If the number, types, or order of columns differs you will need to explicitly specify the columns to return in each sub query.

More Efficient Way to Join Three Tables Together in Postgres

I am attempting to link three tables together in postgres.
All three tables are generated from subqueries. The first table is linked to the second table by the variable call_sign as a FULL JOIN (because I want the superset of entries from both tables). The third table has an INNER JOIN with the second table also on call_sign (but theoretically could have been linked to the first table)
The query runs but is quite slow and I feel will become even slower as I add more data. I realize that there are certain things that I can do to speed things up - like not pulling unnecessary data in the subqueries and not converting text to numbers on the fly. But is there a better way to structure the JOINs between these three tables?
Any advice would be appreciated because I am a novice in postgres.
Here is the code:
select
(CASE
WHEN tmp1.frequency_assigned is NULL
THEN tmp2.lower_frequency
ELSE tmp1.frequency_assigned END) as master_frequency,
(CASE
WHEN tmp1.call_sign is NULL
THEN tmp2.call_sign
ELSE tmp1.call_sign END) as master_call_sign,
(CASE
WHEN tmp1.entity_type is NULL
THEN tmp2.entity_type
ELSE tmp1.entity_type END) as master_entity_type,
(CASE
WHEN tmp1.licensee_id is NULL
THEN tmp2.licensee_id
ELSE tmp1.licensee_id END) as master_licensee_id,
(CASE
WHEN tmp1.entity_name is NULL
THEN tmp2.entity_name
ELSE tmp1.entity_name END) as master_entity_name,
tmp3.market_name
FROM
(select cast(replace(frequency_assigned, ',','.') as decimal) AS frequency_assigned,
frequency_upper_band,
f.uls_file_number,
f.call_sign,
entity_type,
licensee_id,
entity_name
from combo_fr f INNER JOIN combo_en e
ON f.call_sign=e.call_sign
ORDER BY frequency_assigned DESC) tmp1
FULL JOIN
(select cast(replace(lower_frequency, ',','.') as decimal) AS lower_frequency,
upper_frequency,
e.uls_file_number,
mf.call_sign,
entity_type,
licensee_id,
entity_name
FROM market_mf mf INNER JOIN combo_en e
ON mf.call_sign=e.call_sign
ORDER BY lower_frequency DESC) tmp2
ON tmp1.call_sign=tmp2.call_sign
INNER JOIN
(select en.call_sign,
mk.market_name
FROM combo_mk mk
INNER JOIN combo_en en
ON mk.call_sign=en.call_sign) tmp3
ON tmp2.call_sign=tmp3.call_sign
ORDER BY master_frequency DESC;
you'll want to unwind those queries and do it all in one join, if you can. Soemthing like:
select <whatever you need>
from combo_fr f
JOIN combo_en e ON f.call_sign=e.call_sign
JOIN market_mf mf mf ON mf.call_sign=e.call_sign
JOIN combo_mk mk ON mk.call_sign=en.call_sign
I can't completely grok what you're doing, but some of the join clauses might have to become LEFT JOINs in order to deal with places where the call sign does or does not appear.
After creating indexes on call_sign for all four involved tables, try this:
WITH nodup AS (
SELECT call_sign FROM market_mf
EXCEPT SELECT call_sign FROM combo_fr
) SELECT
CAST(REPLACE(u.master_frequency_string, ',','.') AS DECIMAL)
AS master_frequency,
u.call_sign AS master_call_sign,
u.entity_type AS master_entity_type,
u.licensee_id AS master_licensee_id,
u.entity_name AS master_entity_name,
combo_mk.market_name
FROM (SELECT frequency_assigned AS master_frequency_string, call_sign,
entity_type, licensee_id, entity_name
FROM combo_fr
UNION ALL SELECT lower_frequency, call_sign,
entity_type, licensee_id, entity_name
FROM market_mf INNER JOIN nodup USING (call_sign)
) AS u
INNER JOIN combo_en USING (call_sign)
INNER JOIN combo_mk USING (call_sign)
ORDER BY 1 DESC;
I post this because this is the simplest way to understand what you need.
If there are no call_sign values which appear in both market_mf and
combo_fr, WITH nodup ... and INNER JOIN nodup ... can be omitted.
I am making the assumption that call_sign is unique in both combo_fr and market_mf ( = there are no two records in each table with the same value), even if there can be values which can appear in both tables.
It is very unfortunate that you order by a computed column, and that the computation is so silly. A certain optimization would be to convert the frequency strings once and for all in the table itself. The steps would be:
(1) add numeric frequncy columns to your tables (2) populate them with the values converted from the current text columns (3) convert new values directly into the new columns, by inputting them with a locale which has the desired decimal separator.

Selecting non-repeating values in Postgres

SELECT DISTINCT a.s_id, select2Result.s_id, select2Result."mNrPhone",
select2Result."dNrPhone"
FROM "Table1" AS a INNER JOIN
(
SELECT b.s_id, c."mNrPhone", c."dNrPhone" FROM "Table2" AS b, "Table3" AS c
WHERE b.a_id = 1001 AND b.s_id = c.s_id
ORDER BY b.last_name) AS select2Result
ON a.a_id = select2Result.student_id
WHERE a.k_id = 11211
It returns:
1001;1001;"";""
1002;1002;"";""
1002;1002;"2342342232123";"2342342"
1003;1003;"";""
1004;1004;"";""
1002 value is repeated twice, but it shouldn't because I used DISTINCT and no other table has an id repeated twice.
You can use DISTINCT ON like this:
SELECT DISTINCT ON (a.s_id)
a.s_id, select2Result.s_id, select2Result."mNrPhone",
select2Result."dNrPhone"
...
But like other persons have told you, the "repeated records" are different really.
The qualifier DISTINCT applies to the entire row, not to the first column in the select-list. Since columns 3 and 4 (mNrPhone and dNrPhone) are different for the two rows with s_id = 1002, the DBMS correctly lists both rows. You have to write your query differently if you only want the s_id = 1002 to appear once, and you have to decide which auxilliary data you want shown.
As an aside, it is strongly recommended that you always use the explicit JOIN notation (which was introduced in SQL-92) in all queries and sub-queries. Do not use the old implicit join notation (which is all that was available in SQL-86 or SQL-89), and especially do not use a mixture of explicit and implicit join notations (where your sub-query uses the implicit join, but the main query uses explicit join). You need to know the old notation so you can understand old queries. You should write new queries in the new notation.
First of all, the query displayed does not work at all, student_id is missing in the sub-query. You use it in the JOIN later.
More interestingly:
Pick a certain row out of a set with DISTINCT
DISTINCT and DISTINCT ON return distinct values by sorting all rows according to the set of columns to be distinct, then it picks the first row from every set. It sorts by all rows for a general DISTINCT and only the specified rows for DISTINCT ON. Here lies the opportunity to pick certain rows out of a set over other.
For instance if you prefer rows with not-empty "mNrPhone" in your example:
SELECT DISTINCT ON (a.s_id) -- sure you didn't want a.a_id?
,a.s_id AS a_s_id -- use aliases to avoid dupe name
,s.s_id AS s_s_id
,s."mNrPhone"
,s."dNrPhone"
FROM "Table1" a
JOIN (
SELECT b.s_id, c."mNrPhone", c."dNrPhone", ??.student_id -- misssing!
FROM "Table2" b
JOIN "Table3" c USING (s_id)
WHERE b.a_id = 1001
-- ORDER BY b.last_name -- pointless, DISTINCT will re-order
) s ON a.a_id = s.student_id
WHERE a.k_id = 11211
ORDER BY a.s_id -- first col must agree with DISTINCT ON, could add DESC though
,("mNrPhone" <> '') DESC -- non-empty first
ORDER BY cannot disagree with DISTINCT on the same query level. To get around this you can either use GROUP BY instead or put the whole query in a sub-query and run another SELECT with ORDER BY on it.
The ORDER BY you had in the sub-query is voided now.
In this particular case, if - as it seems - the dupes come only from the sub-query (you'd have to verify), you could instead:
SELECT a.a_id, s.s_id, s."mNrPhone", s."dNrPhone" -- picking a.a_id over s_id
FROM "Table1" a
JOIN (
SELECT DISTINCT ON (b.s_id)
,b.s_id, c."mNrPhone", c."dNrPhone", ??.student_id -- misssing!
FROM "Table2" b
JOIN "Table3" c USING (s_id)
WHERE b.a_id = 1001
ORDER BY b.s_id, (c."mNrPhone" <> '') DESC -- pick non-empty first
) s ON a.a_id = s.student_id
WHERE a.k_id = 11211
ORDER BY a.a_id -- now you can ORDER BY freely

SQL - Distinct entries with some cruddy data

I have an issue. I have 2 tables that are linked by an ID.
TableA
ID
Price
Other_Stuff
TableB
ID
TableA_ID
Type
Age
I can do a:
SELECT
M1.Age,
F1.Age,
M2.Age,
F2.Age,
FROM TableA
LEFT JOIN (SELECT * FROM TableB WHERE TableB.Type='1') AS M1 ON M1.TableA_ID=TableA.ID
LEFT JOIN (SELECT * FROM TableB WHERE TableB.Type='2') AS F1 ON F1.TableA_ID=TableA.ID
LEFT JOIN (SELECT * FROM TableB WHERE TableB.Type='3') AS M2 ON M2.TableA_ID=TableA.ID
LEFT JOIN (SELECT * FROM TableB WHERE TableB.Type='4') AS F2 ON F2.TableA_ID=TableA.ID
And things work as expected while the data is good, but the data is not always good. Normally there is at most one or none of each Type in TableB. The problem is that for older data in the table, before types 3 and 5 existed, there is the possibility that there are two type 1 and or two type 2s. in that case I would want the second type 1 to be treated as a type 2 and the second type 2 is treated as a type 4.
Basically I want a single record returned for each entry in TableA with the 4 ages listed in their own columns, I do not want multiple records for each in TableA.
I am using MS SQL 2000.... old, i know.
Thanks,
try changing the subqueries to something like:
SELECT TOP 1 * FROM TableB WHERE TableB.Type='1 AND TableA_ID=TableA.ID